


You Can't Have Your Cake and Let It Eat You, That's Bad Form

by CatieBrie



Series: Gift Fics [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Crack, F/M, Magical Accidents, Magical Shenanigans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-09
Updated: 2016-09-09
Packaged: 2018-08-13 23:38:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7990462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CatieBrie/pseuds/CatieBrie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Harry and Ginny bake a cake in the Burrow for Mr. Weasley's birthday, and something in the mix wasn't what they expected.  The cake expands and expands, threatening to take over the whole house."  </p>
<p>Or: Harry and Ginny never should have been allowed in the kitchen in the first place, so really, this should have been expected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Can't Have Your Cake and Let It Eat You, That's Bad Form

**Author's Note:**

  * For [alexxphoenix42](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alexxphoenix42/gifts).



> This was prompted by the delightful Alexxpheonix42 on tumblr and I absolutely had to do it. It's super short and goofy, but it was so much fun to write~

Harry stares horrorstruck at the monstrosity attempting to bubble out of the oven; the heavy door stands in valiant resistance to the spongy onslaught for a brilliant moment before it concedes with a croaky groan.The cake, once meant to celebrate Arthur’s birthday, but could now very well be alive and ready to lay claim to the Burrow, flops heavily on the floor, triumphant.  A wave of warm toffee and floury-sugar wind invades the kitchen, ruffling Harry’s hair.

“It’s alive,” Ginny whispers from beside him, as if afraid to direct the cake’s attention her way. It throbs anyway, expanding again in size as it reaches nearly the height of one of Hagrid’s prized pumpkins.  “What do we do?”

“We never should have been allowed in the kitchen,” Harry groans, drawing his wand.  “ _Reducio_!”

The spell hits dead center and the cake triples in size with a mocking ripple and resounding pop, effectively depriving them of most of their previous standing room. Harry glares at his wand, betrayed. “Well, that’s just fantastic.”

“You made it angry,” Ginny says, voice choked.  She has her knuckles between her teeth and whiskey-brown eyes opened wide in what could very well be horror, but that Harry takes for unrestrained amusement. Dawning understanding settles on his shoulders.

“Gin,” he says slowly, edging along the counter at his back to get to the drawing room.  Ginny follows suit, but not before toeing the spongy mass; it tries to swallow her house slipper and she yelps, nearly knocking Harry over as she darts past him. “ _Gin_!”

“I didn’t do it, I swear.”  She must read the accusation in Harry’s eyes even before he can level it, but he isn’t convinced of her innocence.  He holds his silence and the corner of her mouth twitches. “ _I didn’t_.”

There's a wretched sucking sound as the cake slips through the doorway after them, expanding to fill every crevice and corner of the kitchen they just escaped.  The drawing room will be next in its conquest if they don’t find a way to defeat it soon.  Harry attempts to banish it and it jiggles as if laughing at him; at least it doesn’t expand.  “Okay. I don’t believe you, but okay. Let’s just find a way to fix this.”

Ginny shoots him a wounded look. “I swear! Maybe it's your muggle cake mix that's the problem, maybe it feeds off magic--they put all kinds of crazy things in their food.”

Harry raises a brow, silently imploring her to rethink that.  Warm sunlight has flooded into the room, reminding him that around them Weasleys and guests will soon rise to the disaster wreaked on the kitchen; even if Ginny hasn’t caused it, his auror instincts and her now twitching left eye indicates that she at least knows who did. Probably George. It’s his best lead.

“Gin, if you could just tell me what--” Harry is interrupted as, angry that their attention no longer rests on it, the cake rolls further into the room, spreading out in all directions like a particularly vicious, and delicious, mold.  

“Merlin’s tits,” Ginny says, almost awed. Harry wishes fervently for more coffee “That’s just not right.”

“It’s too early for this.”

“Try something else.”  Ginny indicates Harry’s wand, having left hers upstairs, a rare occurrence after the War.  When she realized leaving it behind had the dual benefit of forcing Harry to perform all the mundane baking charms, she refused to fetch it when he asked (and then begged, because really, neither of them had any right in a kitchen and he needed the help).

“ _Reducto_!” Harry tries in a last ditch effort at a magical solution. The cake bursts in a spectacular rain of crumbs the size of Harry’s fist; the chunks landslide out of the kitchen to scatter across the drawing room. Ginny and Harry share a silent look, surprised relief painted clear in their grins--it will be a mess to clean but at least--.

A hundred tiny pops smears the relieved expression into exasperated horror as each chunk of cake triples in size, nearly taking over the drawing room in one fell swoop.

“I’m a bloody auror,” Harry grumbles tugging at his hair in frustration.  The room looks as if peeled from a child’s sugar nightmare, all lumpy edges and pulsing confection  “I should be able to defeat a cake!”

“Not a magic-eating cake,” Ginny says reasonably.  “That’s not something you can just blast away.”

“Godric’s soggy knickers.” A new voice saves Harry from responding.  “That wasn’t supposed to happen.”

George stands by the staircase, hair a spiky mess from sleep and eyes sparkling with surprised delight.  Harry points an accusing finger at him even as several over-large chunks of cake continue to steadily grow in size, swallowing each other when their edges meet.   “What did you do?”

“It was supposed to be a simple expanding powder, I put it in the milk.”  George squats to prod at a corner of cake trying to grow over his toes, eyeing it critically.  “I wanted to test it in conjunction with other foods. Have you tried shrinking it?  Banishing it?  It should have stopped expanding when it hit the walls of the oven.  I built in a failsafe.”  

“Yeah, that didn’t work so well.” Ginny has retreated to a relatively cake-free corner of the room.  One of her slippers is gone and Harry can only assume the cake’s second attempt at consuming her footwear proved successful.  “I think it’s eating magic.”

“All our spells just make it grow faster.”  Two thirds of the drawing room has disappeared beneath the toffee confection--the only path open to Ginny and Harry directs them to the stairs despite the blob of cake now up to George’s ankle.  Upstairs, Harry can hear the sounds of the rest of the household waking and it’s only a matter of time before the others discover the monster the three of them created. “Did you test the powder at all beforehand.”

George puff up his chest, insulted.  “Of course I did! I’ve even eaten it myself--although, my teeth did feel a little big afterwards. But they were back to normal on the hour.”

“Maybe it _is_ reacting to something in the cake mix,” Harry concedes reluctantly and then immediately regrets doing so when he catches sight of Ginny’s grin.

“Hah! See, it’s your muggle cake’s fault!” She crows, pointing a jubilant finger at him.  Harry really doesn’t understand how she can have this much energy this early in the morning, all Harry wants to do is curl up in bed or drink an entire carafe of coffee before facing the day. He certainly doesn’t want to be wrangling a cake monster.

“I’m just going to let you believe that.”  Ginny sticks her tongue out at him and he fights the urge to do the same. Unsuccessfully.

“Children, children,” George laughs, stepping down the stairs to move between them.  The cake that had climbed up his calf crumbles away to litter the floor. “None of that.”

The noises of the house waking grow louder, the heavy stomping of feet and running water letting them know they are nearly out of time to fix the problem.  “I’m out of ideas.  I don’t know a thing about baking or your expanding powder.”

“And _my_ kitchen knowledge really only encompasses rigging appliances to change color or explode.”

“Dad would be so proud,” George says.

“You and Seamus need to stop spending so much time alone together,” Harry adds.

Ginny grins, unrepentant.

“What on this green earth--” Harry’s skin crawls with sudden guilt at the newest addition to their group; Molly Weasley stands behind Ginny and George, arms akimbo as she glares down at the three of them and her now entirely cake-encrusted drawing room.  “--did you three do?”

“Magic?” Ginny ventures, looking just as guilty as Harry feels.  

“Uh-huh,” Molly says, her voice that low lilting calm that always warns of impending danger. “How about you do some more magic and fix my house before I _magic_ you.”

“Sure!”  George pulls out his wand, eyes gleaming madly as he aims at the center of the cake.

“George, no!” Harry and Ginny simultaneously dive at George but it’s too late.

“ _Reducto._ ”

“Fuck.”

\--

“I’m so sorry, Molly,” Harry says between his fingers, too embarrassed to face her directly

“It’s alright, dear, I’m sure it wasn’t your fault.” She pats his back consolingly as she directs a glare Ginny and George’s direction.  The Weasley clan, plus Harry and Hermione, currently huddle on the roof of the Burrow in various states of undress and wakefulness.  The cake, at the encouragement of George, chased every last one of them out of their rooms before spilling onto the lawn in spongy, toffee-scented conquest.

“This is certainly one of the more interesting birthdays I’ve had,” Arthur laughs, completely unperturbed.  “I’ve never had a cake like this before.”

“Don’t you dare eat it,” Molly snaps.  “We don’t need you blowing up to the size of the house, too.”

“There’s a thought.”

“ _Absolutely not_.”

“Do it, dad!”

“I’ll eat it if you do.”

“I will body bind the lot of you if you so much as go near that--oh, thank Merlin it’s melting.”

A light sprinkling of rain began falling as they argued and now it comes down in thick, quick droplets that seem to work like acid against the cake. The smell of petrichor and sugar and loam waft up in cool waves as they watch their conqueror quell beneath the touch of water.

“I better grab a sample before we start on the house,” Hermione says, bushy hair a tad absurd and teased from the humidity.  She yawns, standing to stretch.  “I’d like to know what caused such a violent reaction.”

“A girl after my own heart,” George affects a swoon as he too stands and trips after Hermione.

“George, I swear--!” Ron’s yelling cuts off as he chases after his brother.  The rest of them follow at a sedate, sleepy pace.

It takes two hours to wash the cake free from the interior of the home and repair the damages. In the end they take Arthur out for dinner and ice cream, fudge and beetle eyes and spitting candles and family replacing any need for a cake.  

George, Ginny and Harry all receive lifetime bans from the Burrow kitchen. It’s for the best, really **.**

**Author's Note:**

> Irrelevant side notes: I'm more of a BroTPer when it comes to Harry and Ginny, so this really can be read either way. I think after the war Ginny would do more to fill in the gaps Fred left behind, amplifying her already mischevious nature when the opprotunity arised. I also think Harry could cook, but probably not bake and either way after being forced to make meals for spiteful people most of his young life probably turned him off it all
> 
> You can find me on [Tumblr](http://catie-brie.tumblr.com/) where I would love to answer questions, comments, chats or just have you as a friendly stalker. It's also where I periodically post about fanfic I am working on. I am also now on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/CatieBrieFic/)!
> 
> Kudos and comments, as always, are greatly appreciated.


End file.
